For about 2 years now I've experienced intense dreams, some bad some funny but at around the time a sleep cycle should be ending I wake up from a dream. It feels as if I wake up prematurely. My body is shaking, my head feels airy (light), I'm scared, heart is beating faster than normal and often times I begin to sweat. I had a sleep study done and even experienced the event but they said all they saw was my heart rate go up. I meditate now before going to sleep, when the "events" happen I talk myself through them and that usually works but WHY is this happening. I don't drink, do drugs, no caffiene, no bad habits. I do take thyroid meds and that's about it. When I was younger I did have bouts of sleep paralysis. I'm stumped and tired of this. Doctors just want to prescribe something and I don't want drugs. I want an understanding of what may be happening.

i think i kinda know what may b goin on ... i used to have it when i was little ... i used to get stuck in the dream, n they were very surreal ... when i woke up i felt as if i was still in surreal land! i think it is when your brain goes from awake .. to asleep ... but doesn't quite reach asleep instead stays in the middle. you may feel youve woken prematurely because you went into a premature state of sleep in the first place ... thats how things like sleep walking and talking happen also along with other different factors, but i think this is the explantation for you ... as i have had the same thing but i grew out of it.. it means you need to meditate and relax yourself before sleep .. check your diet mayb?! cheese dairy's and all that kinda stuff isnt good for sleep .. you need to be able to push your mind into the asleep state instead of inbetween awake and asleep .... changing little things to help you relax can make a difference.

I researched into this because i had a lot of sleep paralyse when i was little, and some particularly scary nigtmares in sleep paralyses a couple of years ago.
What i remember about all of the dreams i ad as a kid was that i would feel my heart beating so fast, and i knew i was on my way into the sleep paralyses again. it seems its all linked to the electrical circuitry of the heart, i have a little heart murmur so i think that could be why i get these episodes at times. and i get heart palpitations every so often. i read that the brain wave patterns can cause this too. dont exactly know what im talking about, but i too would love to know what causes it because when u have those dreams he arent always nice.one particular time it happened after meditation, so mayb try not meditating?

hey i found this post from a previous thread, i think its very helpful

just do some research on sleep paralysis, basicly to sum things up its one of the bodies natural ways to protect itself from acting out dreams. when drifting into the sleep state the brainstem releases a kind of brain chemicle that causes the body to become paralyzed so that if say you slip into a dream where your running around and wake up prematurely you dont go running off a cliff, basicly a way to keep the body from hurting itself. as for the the weird sounds and electircal feelings, those can be attributed to someting called a myoclonic jerk i believe is the phrase, the body thinks its dieing so it sends out electrical impulses to keep itself jumpstarted and everyone goes through these processes but most are unconcious before they ever have a chance to notice them. so in summary
sleep paralyzation is a bodies way to keep itself from harm
hallucinations or visions in this state are literally dreaming while your concious
and the electircal efefcts are the body being too aware that its drifting off into sleep and because of this, is misinterpreting falling asleep as dieing and in turn the body trying to compensate.

this has all been a major area of interest for me for a number of years now and if anyone has any further questions and uses aol or aim, feel free to message me as AshNineFallen and ill be happy to try and clarify anything you may wish to know in regards to the matter

ride the spiral and i hope this info allows you to rest much easier

p.s.
these kind of experiences open up a whole new world in regards to lucid dreaming and if your taking any sort of opiate based pain medication it tends to make these sorts of experiences more noticeable.
and remember, fear is the mindkiller, fearnot and grow :

People with blindness often suffer from sleep disorders because their retinas cannot detect light. It just proves how our bodies are a collection of chemical responses triggered by our enviornment. It is lucid dreaming that you are referring to like claireybears suggests.

So this past week, I have had, as of now, 3 pretty intense nights of dreams. To collectively sum them all up, they have all ended with my girlfriend ignoring me and walking away from me, so I end up waking up worried, concerned, and with my heart beating out of my chest, reassuring myself that it was just a dream and my girlfriend was at her Apt. tucked away in bed, having seen her and talked to her not too long ago. I have not had dreams like this for as long as I can remember. I have been reading up on "intense" or "crazy" dreams and one note I have gathered from countless articles is that over exhaustion over periods of time cause these type of dreams, which makes complete sense honestly. Two weeks ago, school started for another term, and just one week ago, I got a new job which called for many early shifts, so my sleeping time went from about 8 hours to roughly six, still feeling terrible when i wake up and through out the day, with having to work 5-7 hour days then classes and labs on top of that. I am just hoping that my body gets use to this abrupt transition because I use to never wake up in the middle of the night, now these dreams are shaking me and causing me to get even less sleep and making me drowsier throughout the day........................